Aaron Armstrong

bloggingtheologically.com

hospitality

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links-weekday

This morning I’m off to Louisville to hang out with about 8,000 people at T4G. Here are a couple of posts to help prepare for the experience. Semi-related, this week there are a lot of new Kindle deals tying into the conference:

Is Speaking Your Mind a Christian Virtue? Ten Thoughts from Scripture

Dan Darling:

We live in an age where “speaking your mind” is considered a virtue and a hailed as a sign of good leadership. But is this trait something the Bible commends? Should Christians be known for “speaking their mind?”

Let’s ponder this Schaeffer quote about once a week — at least

So glad Ray Ortlund shared this.

Why Hospitality Beats Entertaining

Jen Wilkin:

But the two practices can look so similar. Two people can set the same beautiful tablescape and serve the same gourmet meal, one with a motive to impress, the other with a motive to bless. How can we know the difference? Only the second would invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind to pull up a chair and sip from the stemware (Luke 14:12–14). Our motives are revealed not just in how we set our tables, but in who we invite to join us at the feast. Entertaining invites those whom it will enjoy. Hospitality takes all comers.

Five Things I Learned While Buying a House

Chris Martin:

In the fall of 2015, we decided to finally buy a home in Nashville. Despite a delay due to our rollover wreck, car replacement, and subsequent physical therapy, we finally started seriously looking at homes in February, and we put an offer on a home in mid-March.

A lot of young people read this blog—let’s be real, mainly just my friends read this blog—and a lot of my friends haven’t purchased homes yet. Friends, and other readers, here are five things I learned in the home-buying process that I would like to pass on to you.

Selective history in the “Good Ol’ Days”

Marty Duren:

Insulated thinking causes us to elevate certain things to the exclusion of others. Insulated thinking causes us to ignore the facts that would bring low what we would seek to exalt; realities that balance the tale we would otherwise tell. It is dangerous.

Talking Baseball with Your Enemies

Derek Rishmawy:

One dimension of communication I’ve wrestled with more than others is how to talk to people you don’t agree with, perhaps dislike, or even consider an ideological enemy. It’s also something we seem to be particularly bad at in our internet age. I don’t need to describe this in detail. We’ve all seen one too many Facebook updates blow up into a rehash of the schisms and Crusades to doubt this is a problem. It is election season, after all.

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Kindle deals for Christian readers

On Preaching and Public Invitations

Jason Allen:

I once sat through a sermon that began, literally, with the invitation. The entirety of the sermon was given to explaining the forthcoming invitation and to encouraging the listeners to come forward during it. There was no preached word; no gospel presentation to which one should respond. I kept thinking, “Come forward in light of what? Come forward for what?” I didn’t have a seminary degree then, but I had a hunch that merely changing one’s geographic location in a room wouldn’t save.

Christians Need to Stop Cussing

Erik Raymond:

But, I’ve noticed that many Christians are still plagued by a foul mouth. They say things that are offensive to God and to others. I suspect that many don’t even realize it either. Like a new convert who remains fluent in the sailor’s tongue the Christian may not realize what they are saying or its theological impact.

So let me give you a couple of 4 letter words that Christians should mortify with quickness: “luck” and “fate”.

4 Ways to Reach a Child’s Heart

Richard Phillips:

I am constantly amazed at the number of people who assure me that their fathers hardly ever praised them, but constantly criticized and berated. I meet people all the time who tell me that their fathers beat into their heads that they were losers who would never succeed. I can scarcely imagine what that is like. There is only so much a pastor can do to remedy such an upbringing, and the best he can do will include pointing such a person to the effective healing love of our heavenly Father, who can do far more than any man. But as fathers we can ensure that our own children are raised with the rich fertilizer of fatherly affection and esteem.

Just Be Hospitable

Mike Leake:

Hospitality is not a means to grow your church. It is fundamental to a churches identity. It is who you are. If we’ve botched hospitality it is because in some way we have botched the gospel.

Is It Possible To Enjoy What God Has Created Without Feeling Guilty?

Stephen Altrogge:

God could have made us tireless, so that we never needed to rest and could always be doing more for God. But instead he created us to work and rest, and to find pleasure in both. To enjoy watching a football game or movie for the glory of God as our body recuperates.

Sometimes I think we can have this weird, dualistic mentality, where spiritual things are good and physical things are second rate at best. In reality, all of life is an opportunity to enjoy God and find out satisfaction in him, not just our devotional times.

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